• One of the heroes of the U.S.'s 1996 World Cup triumph says that the 2014 version of Team USA will be the best ever. Not sure I'd agree. The team will be deeper for sure, but it will also lack the depth at center (with such players as Pat LaFontaineMike Modano and Doug Weight) that the '96 team had.

• Could Alex Pietrangelo's contract situation with the Bluesdamage his Olympic aspirations? The defenseman is one of those players that's in virtually everybody's top-six, but if he misses camp because of a holdout, all bets on him making the roster for Sochi will be off.

• Contract talks are heating up in Vancouver as the Sedin twins enter the final season of their current deals. They're saying all the right things, but Iain MacIntyre thinks they would be crazy to stay.

• 32 veteran officials met up in Switzerland with an eye on grabbing one of the 14 jobs available for Sochi. Couldn't have been much of a camp if they didn't spend an hour running up and down a dry rink calling violations in a pretend ball hockey game.